After my vacation trip up the Natchez Trace last year, my little sister said, “So have you read the Anna Pigeon mystery novels about the Trace?”
Who knew that there were Anna Pigeon mysteries about the Natchez Trace? And who is this Anna Pigeon anyway? It was a mystery! I had to find out more…
In the series of books, Anna Pigeon is a National Park ranger. As she gets transferred from one park to the next, she solves murder mysteries. She’s a Law Enforcement ranger, not one of those wimpy Interpretive types. She carries a gun and arrests folks. Along the way, she tends to get beat up quite a bit. There’s a score of these books, so she must be walking with a pretty good limp by now.
I’ve only read 2 of the books. I like them. I can already make out the general formula for the books. It’s not all that restricting. Basically, bad things happen. You get to know some people. Not everybody is helpful. Even some co-workers aren’t trustworthy. (Bad Park Rangers? Heaven forbid!) And there’s often a pet around somewhere. And then as part of the denoument, she gets beat up really bad, yet still manages to save the day.
Sure, there’s plenty of descriptions of the scenery. Some of it stuff that park visitors never get to see. But it’s not as much as I’d hoped. That’s OK, because this is a mystery, not a travelogue.
The first one I read was Deep South
My next try was Hard Truth
The author, Nevada Barr, is a former National Park Enforcement Ranger. Go figure. So she knows her stuff. She’s really good at getting into other people’s heads. And she does trickle in some tricks of the trade: how silence forces people to talk more than questioning, facial movements to watch for when people are lying. (BTW, did you know that the contents of backcountry toilets have to be packed out? I hope they use mules or something more substantial than someone with a backpack.)
And when you’re done, it kinda feels like you’ve been there.
In both books, I knew who the killer was before Anna did. But apparently she doesn’t read mystery books, so I had the upper hand. In one case, I didn’t know the motive. Once Anna figured that out, and showed it to me, then we were both good. In the other one, even though I knew who did it, Nevada Barr convinced me I was wrong about two thirds of the way thru. I didn’t realize that I’d been hornswaggled till Anna figured out that it really was who I’d said it was.
So the mysteries are fair and don’t cheat.
I’ve chosen randomly among the lot, starting about halfway thru the series, then jumping another 25% forward. Next I’ve really got to start with the first one. But I dont’ think that being out of sequence will hurt very much. While each book is connected to the previous adventures, they seem to telegraph enough that you can keep up to speed.
I’m starting to think that more books should be in the mystery format. Just to spice things up a little. It would work for Hamlet, the Danish Detective. Tom Sawyer Private Eye seems a natural. Pride and Prejudice and Poison anyone?
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version. The scented version smells like soap. I once asked of Kirk’s website, what’s the name of that smell? They never got back to me. It smells kinda French to me though. But in a clean way.
, and some 
. Uh, I must have seen snippets of others. 
. 
. 
. 
. 
. Surely…
. It came out in 2009 and is 12 hours long. I was desperate for a bunch of pretty.
with a waffle weave. It works great too.
. It’s from 2004 and I’d never heard of it despite it starring Susan Sarandon, Penelope Cruz, Alan Arkin, & Paul Walker (?!). Oh, and Robin Williams makes an appearance, uncredited so you won’t think this is a comedy.
so I can see Fred Astaire be a major jerk. Then I watch the remake, 
, where Danny Kaye is ever so nice yet manipulative. Aside from that, I’m pretty much burnt out on Christmas movies. That 
with Jimmy Stewart, I don’t even want to mention. The 
with Robert Wagner’s wife when she was a kid and with Mrs. Jane Tarzan ( it was later 
with Mr. French as Santa and Roddy McDowell as the evil shrink), I can stand on occasion, if only because Fred Mertz is in it, and the man Jack Albertson. The 
with the original Kolchak and the gal from 
, I’ve never actually seen all the way thru. (Don’t tell me if he does actually shoot his eye out. I’m saving it for my later years.) 
start to get cloying or weird after that.
in your version of the Christmas story.
by William Least-Heat Moon, or 
by that guy John Steinbeck. I like to read camping guides.
by Fletcher and Rawlins came out. I’m still reading on it. It gets my hopes up. It calms my nerves. It’s like going out camping without getting your nose cold. I bet my dog wishes he could do that! When all the claustrophobia of my life collapses on top of me, I read some of that book, and imagine myself in the Sierras, or the Adirondacks, or the Porkies. Somewhere not here.
. It came out the Summer of ought-twelve. Mike visited almost every National Park in the contiguous US. One third of the photos in the book are from his own camera. There’s maps. There’s recommendations. What I really like is the circles and arrows on the maps pointing out things not to miss.
. It’s the 7th book in the series.
